Pope Leo XIV will resume his Wednesday general audience at the Vatican this week. But he will skip his usual Monday-evening-through-Tuesday-evening stay at the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo southeast of Rome.
The pontiff returned to the Vatican on Saturday, four days after surgery to remove a cancerous lung nodule. The same day, Dr. Stefano Margaritora, who operated on Pope Leo on Oct. 13 at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, cleared the pope to proceed with his apostolic journey to South America in November.
The next day, Oct. 18, Leo resumed praying the Sunday Angelus from the window of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
"Having overcome this delicate phase, as you know, I will now gradually resume my activities, always with God's help and your prayers," the pope said in his Angelus address.
Brother surprised that pope's South America trip will proceed
Louis Prevost, one of Pope Leo XIV's brothers, expressed surprise in a Sunday interview with Fox News that Margaritora had cleared the pope's trip.
"I thought maybe they'd postpone that," Prevost said.
Prevost, who is receiving treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of cancer, also expressed surprise that Leo had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which had never occurred in the family.
"He was the first with the lung cancer, which came out of the blue. Nobody else had that in our family that I'm aware of," Prevost said.
Prevost also shared that he and the pope had talked every day during his hospitalization.
"Every time I talked to him or texted him [during his hospitalization], he was answering," Prevost said. "So, I know other than during the operation and in his brief, quick recovery, he was incommunicado. But since then, almost anytime I reach out to him, he is right there."
"When we get on the phone or talk, we give each other crap, you know?" Prevost said. "We tell jokes; some are off color."
Asked how he could give the pope crap, he replied: "You tell him he's being stupid."
